Sunday, September 24

Spokane Trip: Heading Back Home with Some Geocaching

The alarm went off sometime between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m.  My sleep was a little better than the night before, but it is just hard sleeping next to someone who snores and is a freaking heater!  Plus, the futon is a little small for someone who is tall and takes up more room than a smaller person.  Oh well, it is, what it is.  I was just thankful we had something to sleep on, so we didn't have to sleep on the floor.    

We got up, used the restroom, did our bathroom things and then started packing up our stuff into our duffle bags.  We helped Brenda and Ray put their tiny living room back together.  We all collectively decided to go out for breakfast to Old European.  We have not been there since April 2017 when we came to Spokane with Mom and Trish for the Titanic Exhibit.  I was super excited to eat there again.  It's been too long.

We hopped in the hamster car around 9:30 and drove the short distance to Old European.  This place is always busy.  It was super busy in Pullman, and it is busy here in Spokane too. I was surprised we got in as quickly as we did a few years back when we visited the Post Falls one.  I think that was just perfect timing on our part.  Anyway, we parked and went inside.  We did have to wait but we didn't have to wait too terribly long before we got a table for four people. 

We ordered drinks, Ben had a mocha, and I got a chocolate milk.  We were all given waters as well. The place was busy, so our waitress didn't come back for a while.  We were wondering if she had forgotten about us.  When she finally came back, she dropped off our drinks and we were able to order our food before she disappeared again.  I got the bacon and eggs platter; it came with English muffins and Ben got the big breakfast platter.  It had eggs, ham, bacon, sausage and hashbrowns, he had toast with his.  We waited for our food for a while too.  Luckily, we had stuff to talk about while we waited.  Once our food came out, I was excited to eat it and when I did, it was delicious!  

We finished up, paid and headed out, happy and full. We drove the quick mile back to the apartment and was back by 10:45. Ben and I took a couple loads of our stuff out to the Escape and tetris'd it in. We grabbed the TV that we bought from Ray and Brenda to take home with us.  We needed a new one and they couldn't take it with them.  We went back to the apartment and asked them where the best place would be to take pictures.  Ray said probably outside.  We found a nice little area with a tree in the background.  The sun was out so we had some good lighting.  We took some nice ones together and some silly ones.  It's going to be weird without them in Spokane. 





We gave out hugs and thanked them for inviting us over for a fun weekend. We got into the Escape and got back onto Division.  I briefly wanted to stop at Riverfront Park, but we saw that there was a lot of construction going on and not a whole lot of parking, so we got onto I-90 and headed west.  The traffic was minimal, so it didn't take us very long to get to Ritzville.       

I wanted to stop in Ritzville to get a couple caches I didn't have time to grab the previous May.  We got off the freeway and drove into downtown Ritzville.  We parked in front of the library, got out and looked for Another Lesson in Civics (GC9QCHE).  It had a ton of favorite points, so we assumed it was going to be cool.  We looked and looked and then saw something that didn't look like the others, and it moved.  Below the sign/reader board, are fake books to mimic a shelf of library books and one of the books you were able to remove.  Ben removed the fake book, discovered it was hollow but there wasn't a cache inside.  It was empty, but we assumed that someone had taken the container and logbook out of it.  We didn't have anything small enough to put inside of it so we cut down one of our containers we got the previous day, made a logbook, signed it, got a couple pictures and put it back.  We made a note in our log to the cache owner of what we did and needed a maintenance visit soon. 

We walked over to the library to get our first waypoint to the Ritzville Sculptures Adventure Lab throughout the town.  This one gave us a hard time because it wasn't straightforward, but we eventually found the words we needed to complete it.  We saw where the other two waypoints were and decided to just walk to them since they weren't far from the library.  They were quick waypoints and in no time, we were back to the Escape to grab one more cache before gathering up the last two waypoints.

We drove the short distance to Everytown Has One...(GC7VTHW) which was at the fire station on the corner of the main road.  It was at the fire sculpture on the southeast side of the station.  We made sure to park out of the way, got out and started looking.  A black nano on at this hiding spot may take a while. We checked and felt everywhere we possibly could.  I was glad town wasn't that busy or onlookers would wonder what we were doing. After a few minutes, we made the grab.  It was hidden well.  I got our names on it, took several pictures and put it back. 



We drove back towards the freeway to grab the last two waypoints.  One was near a golf course and the other was a two-fer, a waypoint and a cache, Welcome to Ritzville (GC7XNXH).  There was no parking at the cache site, so we parked at the gas station across the road and ran over to grab it.  We finished the Adventure Lab first and then looked for the hide-a-key on the covered wagon.  Luckily, it was a quick find because this location is super exposed to the travelers getting off and on to I-90.  We got our names on it, a photo and put it back.  We ran back over to the gas station when traffic wasn't as busy. 


We got back into the Escape, drove under the freeway to the Love's, where we got gas, used the restroom and Ben grabbed Fuel Up! (GC9VFGV).  I had picked it up a few months back.  We got back onto I-90 and headed home.  We made the long drive across the state, through the mountain range and back on the west side, of course Ben snoozed off and on, during the drive over.  I listened to podcasts as I drove.  We did run into phantom-created congestion near Easton, which I would love to know why it happens every time because it makes no sense why that area is always congested on the way home.  We stopped in North Bend at the Safeway to use the restroom.  I wanted a snack, so I got a turkey and cheese Lunchable and a Pepsi Zero for the rest of the drive home.  Ben didn't want anything.  

Traffic got a little weird getting off of I-90 and onto Hwy 18, due to the construction and the lame people who don't know how to drive and love to cut people off. The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful, and we rolled into our driveway around 6:30.  We unloaded the Escape, got cleaned up, started a load of laundry and got ready for the work week.  Why do weekends go by so fast?

We needed another piece for our wall mount for the TV, so our new TV wasn't put up until mid-week.  It was nice to be able to put the Germany TV away and have a normal TV once again. 

Next Adventure:  Seattle Mariners vs. Houston Astros with Alicia

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